Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explore how SAP is finally delivering on its intelligent enterprise vision through AI, data, and role-based agents.Highlights00:14 — I’ve spent the last couple of days at SAP Connect, and I think one of the key things that came out of was this: SAP can now legitimately be called a data company. But the key now is that it's fusing data (data it's gathered across its applications for half a century, some of the richest enterprise data stores in the world) with AI.01:28 — At the heart is its Business Data Cloud. Executive Board Member and Head of Products and Engineering, Muhammad Alam, said the Business Data Cloud is one of the fastest-growing products SAP has had, at least in recent years. He also noted that a huge percentage of SAP customers are already using the Data Cloud, pulling together applications, agents, and assistants.02:14 — SAP's not trying to engage in an “arms race” over who has more agents. Instead, it wants to make it incredibly easy for customers to use SAP’s agents—or build their own. As the assistant gets to know a user’s decision-making style, it will begin to take more initiative. SAP also made it clear that its a strong future for applications—but only if they’re supercharged by agents.03:28 — We’ve heard a lot, both from SAP and other companies about the intelligent enterprise. But what SAP did at this Connect event was very specifically show that this isn’t just deep tech. It’s about business value—for finance, ERP, HR, procurement, supply chain, and more.04:17 — Many of SAP’s acquisitions from 10–12 years ago are finally harmonized. That’s why I believe the combined power of SAP’s data, applications, and AI is significant—but at the heart of it is the Business Data Cloud. As we move deeper into the AI revolution, it’s important to recognize SAP can now say: “Yes, we are a data company. And we are also an applications and AI company.” Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I discuss Microsoft’s smart strategy to integrate agentic AI into everyday consumer platforms starting with gaming.Highlights00:12 — Microsoft is rolling out its Gaming Copilot to Windows PCs and Xbox on mobile, following a previous soft launch to Xbox Insiders. Gaming Copilot provides recommendations in-game help, and further insights.00:50 — Particularly interesting is the voice mode. This enables users to ask questions to Copilot using natural language. For example, a gamer might want to inquire about an in-game strategy or request a summary of what's happening on the screen — in real time. Once again, Microsoft is demonstrating its ability to normalize agentic AI by bringing Copilot to wider audiences.01:25 — As the world's largest consumer software provider, Microsoft is a household name. In my opinion, agentic AI is not yet as widely recognized. Introducing Copilot as a branded Gaming Copilot in the gaming space — and delivering it directly to mobile — is a smart strategy by Microsoft. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I reflect on Nadella’s legacy and the parallels to other tech icons like Larry Ellison and Bill Gates.Highlights00:13 — Well, Microsoft seems to be setting out to ensure that it is creating the new rules for its own future. Its CEO, Satya Nadella, has picked a successor, and this is going to allow Nadella to focus the vast majority of his time on product development, product engineering, architecture, advanced technology, and more. So, big changes are coming at Microsoft.01:23 — Nadella has spent the last 12 years as CEO, during which time Microsoft has achieved just phenomenal results. It now has a market cap approaching $4 trillion, rivaling NVIDIA. Nadella has totally remade the company. It was a bit of a mess when he took over in 2014. Now, one blemish I would say on Nadella's record is the issue of security.02:35 — Nadella has named Judson Althoff, the head of sales for Microsoft for the last nine years, overseeing customers and partners, as CEO of the commercial business. His new role will involve almost every part of the organization, except product development and engineering. Marketing and operations report to Althoff. Operations report to Althoff.03:02 — What Nadella wants Althoff to do is use this new role to get all parts of the company working in concert — very smoothly and fluidly. They said Microsoft's customers are moving faster than ever before, and this is going to require Microsoft itself to move faster than it ever has.03:55 — Very few people could ever understand what it’s like to be in that role at a company of that size and that influence and say “You know, it’s time for a new adventure for me and a new way of operating for the company.” Bill Gates, in 2000, he said, “I just want to be Chairman, and I’ll be Chief Software Architect.” Hats off to Satya Nadella. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explain how Palantir’s unique model and alignment with AI trends earned it a spot in the Top 10.Highlights00:14 — Well, one company that has hammered its way into the Cloud Wars Top 10 is Palantir. With regret, I have to say farewell to Snowflake. So, I've noted here at the top a couple of numbers: 48% revenue growth for Palantir in its recent fiscal Q2. That pushed its revenue to just over $1 billion, which gives them a $4 billion annualized run rate.01:39 — But I think the reason that's so high is there's an alignment between the demands that businesses have right now—to get their data in order, get their processes in order, their workflows, put things together seamlessly, to be able to take full advantage of what they're doing with AI. That matches up with the unique software capabilities, architecture, and business model Palantir has.02:26 — Palantir takes those desired business outcomes and engineer backwards, using its very powerful but flexible software to determine the right approach. I've got a detailed interview with Chad Walquist, an executive at Palantir. Chad said is that they’ve got about 100 salespeople. He said, “You know, maybe, if we really do a rigorous count, maybe it’s 150, but it’s not more than that.”03:17 — Palantir defies the notion of being plugged into any of the old-fashioned and somewhat tired industry analyst boxes. I think more of the big software companies are moving in that direction — doing what customers want and need, rather than trying to fit into some narrowly defined boxes that industry analysts have cooked up.04:42 — Chad's title at Palantir is Architect. He's got an illustrious background as an enterprise architect, but I think, as you'll see in this video, he's also the person at Palantir who handles a lot of product marketing and marketing overall, a lot of their strategy, and so forth. It's a very different sort of company, and Chad does a fantastic job of describing what those differences are. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

Bonnie Tinder is the founder and CEO of Raven Intelligence, an independent B2B peer review site that amplifies the voice of the customer. She focuses on software customers, consulting partners, and software vendors and helps identify the best partners for their needs. In this episode, Tinder joins Bob Evans to break down what’s next for Oracle and SAP, exploring AI-native applications, agent ecosystems, and data openness, while offering sharp, practical insights into how enterprises can extract real value from AI innovation.Episode 55 | Oracle, SAP, and the AI ShiftThe Big Themes:Oracle’s Upcoming AI Agent Marketplace: One of Oracle’s most anticipated announcements is the launch of an AI Agent Marketplace. This platform will act like an app store for AI-powered agents, opening new monetization paths for partners and developers. It will enable third-party vendors to sell industry-specific agents and tools, further enriching Oracle’s AI ecosystem. This move reflects a broader strategy to position Oracle not just as a cloud provider but as a facilitator of innovation across its partner network.SAP’s Bold Vision: SAP is preparing to reveal its most radical AI shift yet—positioning AI as the primary user interface across its suite. Powered by Joule, SAP's AI assistant, users will be able to interact with software through natural language instead of traditional menus or clicks. Tasks like requesting time off or checking budgets will be handled conversationally. This paradigm shift moves SAP from system-of-record software to intelligent systems-of-action.AI Recruitment Tools Rise: Both Oracle and SAP are doubling down on AI-enhanced recruitment tools. SAP’s acquisition of SmartRecruiters and Oracle’s industry bundles for talent management signal a strong push into AI-driven hiring. AI is being used to streamline candidate engagement, improve matching, and personalize outreach. While some fear AI may displace roles, enterprise vendors are positioning it as a tool to find the right people faster.The Big Quote: ““The hardest part of any of these transformations is the change management piece, and if AI can help make that change easier, faster and more comfortable for all the stakeholders—that’s the name of the game." Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I look at what the launch of Microsoft Marketplace means for frontier firms and innovation at scale.Highlights00:09 — Microsoft has announced that it’s combining the separate marketplaces for AI business tools into a single offering called Microsoft Marketplace. The aim is to deliver these solutions as an extension of Microsoft Cloud to support what Microsoft describes as "frontier firms" — firms that blend human ambition with AI-powered technology.00:37 — Microsoft Marketplace combines Azure Marketplace and Microsoft AppSource, enabling users to quickly and easily test, purchase, and deploy cloud solutions, AI applications, and crucially, agents. Now currently available in the U.S., the new marketplace is expected to launch for global audiences soon.01:01 — By combining the offerings from Azure Marketplace — which focuses on cloud-related infrastructure platforms and SaaS — with Microsoft AppSource — its marketplace for business applications, productivity tools, and applications built on the Microsoft technology stack — enterprises now have access to a comprehensive range of tools.01:24 — This is just the latest in a series of moves by Microsoft to simplify AI adoption and implementation for its enterprise users. Similar to its decision to make Copilot Studio a two-tier service, Microsoft isn’t reinventing the wheel. Instead, it continues to provide services tailored to AI innovation while using familiar tools for users. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I examine how Christian Klein’s stance could shift the entire European tech economy away from imitation toward AI-driven transformationHighlights00:20 — A few months ago a lot of countries within Europe were saying, “What we need to do is build hyperscalers to match the ones based in the U.S.” Now, SAP CEO Christian Klein stood up and said, “That’s nuts. Let’s not do that. There’s a very different way to go on this.” And over the past few weeks, we've seen some significant investments coming from SAP.01:12 — The investments are great, and all those ideals about wanting to have data privacy, data security, all valid in the AI Revolution. What really stood out here, more than these investments, was: think about what might have happened had the European Union spent trillions of dollars to keep up with the hyperscalers.02:10 — SAP has a whole new plan for the sovereign cloud. Its Executive Board Member Thomas Saueressig has been involved in this. He said, “We want to have a sovereign cloud that gives the greatest safeguards and compliance to customers, and also gives them a great deal of choice. We want to keep this open for lots of partners to work with us.” But that’s the direction it's taking. 03:13 — So, we've got SAP pledging to invest, over the next few years, $22 billion in its sovereign cloud. Just the other day, I noted something about how Oracle, Microsoft, and OpenAI—now it’s about a trillion dollars that they’re pumping into these AI data centers. That’s really not the place for the European economy to go. And I give Christian Klein credit:.04:14 —SAP partner AWS has now pledged about $8.5 billion for the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. I also thought it was interesting that SAP Chief Technology Officer Philipp Herzig came said, “We’ve got cloud sovereignty, we’ve got data sovereignty—now we need to be sure that SAP is a leader in AI sovereignty.”05:00 — So, fascinating time here on the technology front. I think SAP is going to continue to do very well with its sovereign cloud efforts. But I think even more than that, its CEO, Christian Klein, really stood out. He did a great service by getting them off of this idea of imitating what’s already been done. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explore Microsoft’s new Facilitator Agent in Teams and how it’s quietly revolutionizing meeting collaboration through agentic AI.Highlights00:07 — Microsoft has added a Facilitator Agent to Teams. This new agent can create agendas, take notes, help keep discussions on track, create follow-ups, and even pressure-test discussion points. There's a difference between this agent and other note-taking and summarization tools already available. The Facilitator Agent participates in the discussion, as a silent partner.00:41 — It can alert users when time is running out and ensure that participants don't stray too far from the core discussion points. It can even answer open-ended questions during a chat.Now, as someone who has a lot of online meetings, I can really see the benefits here — not only from a time management and efficiency perspective, but also from a collaborative standpoint. 01:22 — It's important to highlight innovations like these that, at first glance, don't seem particularly new or exciting — especially when we think we already have the capabilities that they are presenting at our fingertips. Instead, this demonstrates the incremental progress happening in the agentic AI space. It's encouraging to see refinement in core use cases. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explore how Microsoft and Oracle are battling for AI data center supremacy.Highlights00:15 — I want to talk about a couple of high-disruption companies — actually, three: Microsoft, Oracle, and OpenAI. And I think right now, it's safe to say that those three companies, together with SoftBank, are pursuing investments upwards of a trillion dollars in what they're calling AI data centers. I think this is a great thing for them to do.01:19 — Microsoft has become more vocal about its role and leadership in these areas. Oracle, OpenAI, and SoftBank are jointly building what is called Stargate, sort of the infrastructure brand for OpenAI. Now, Microsoft has introduced its own brand for its AI data centers, Fairwater. It's in the final stages of building what it is calling the world’s most powerful AI data center.02:18 — And I have no doubt that fairly soon, we're going to hear from Google Cloud about some of its plans. I am less sanguine, in some ways, about what Amazon and AWS might do. I know that runs contrary to what a lot of people like to say — that AWS is still the king of the cloud. I haven’t — you know, I just haven’t taken that seriously in the last two or three years.03:14 — So, Microsoft is doing very well with AI. Now, OpenAI, led by Sam Altman — they’re still doing some work with Microsoft on the cloud and AI. But it's putting — starting in a year or two — a $300 billion investment with Oracle to build a chain of just absolutely staggeringly big, powerful data centers under the Stargate name.04:09 — It’ll work with Oracle very closely on that. They’re also — in concert in some places and separately in others — pursuing some new data center deals with SoftBank. So OpenAI is working with Microsoft, working with Oracle, working with SoftBank — all in different ways. Oracle also has its own data center network for its rapidly growing cloud and AI business.05:01 — So lots of talk right now, lots of action, lots of investment going into this. But ultimately, the beneficiaries of all this incredible — what I think is unprecedented — competition, will be businesses and regular individuals like you and me. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I look at how Oracle’s new co-CEOs plan to blend AI, OCI, and industry expertise into a powerful growth equation.Highlights00:13 — Big things happening at Oracle. Safra Catz has stepped over and up to the role of Executive Vice Chairman, opening the door for two new CEOs at Oracle: Clay Magouyrk, the leader of their Oracle Cloud Infrastructure business, and Mike Sicilia, the leader of their industries business. I thought it was fascinating.01:00 — Mike Sicilia, co-CEO, said in this discussion with financial analysts that AI enables new opportunities across industries, not just within an industry. With AI and better sets of data and being able to use OCI's computational power of OCI, new operating models and relationships can be created across industries like banking and healthcare and many other combinations.02:25 — And so he said the foundation on the technology side — which Clay Magouyrk has been leading so much — is to enable all the leading large language models to work with enterprise-level data in a highly private and secure, fully compliant way. That's why the Oracle Database 23AI was specifically designed for that.03:22 — Now I think this is one of those cases where we see companies pushing a vision. In this AI revolution, it's important for that vision not just to be a slightly better version of what we've done in the past, but something completely different. I think big vision, big imagination, and big risk-taking are called for here.04:34 — Then, closing out the call, we had comments from Magouyrk and Sicilia, and in a longer article today on Cloud Wars, I go into some detail on that. I allow Sicilia to explain with a lot more color how these cross-industry ecosystems will work, and Magouyrk also offers some perspective on that. Visit Cloud Wars for more.